54 Open Source Alternative To Popular Android Apps

Posted On October 25, 2018February 12, 2019

Posted By Parveen

Paid apps seem to be the better option most of the times because they reduce the amount of tracking by the ad agencies (Google, Yahoo etc), additional features of the pro version, and zero intrusive ads. But buying app subscription is not always a viable solution to everyone’s needs and plus it’s not possible for any user to buy a monthly/yearly subscription to 30-40 apps he/she may be using on their smartphone. Similarly, you can’t buy a complete Office Suite for editing image or docs, which is why I shared with your guys a list offree open source word processor, you should check that out. Same applies to your PC when Here I am going to introduce you to open source android apps which are completely free alternatives to most popular utility and special purpose Android apps.

Some of these apps are not well popular with Android users but they even provide better and additional features to proprietary apps. Like NewPipe givesaccess to YouTube videos, the user can stream videos, save subscriptions locally, and even download YouTube videos. Due to ads and continued data link with servers for some popular proprietary apps are too much resource and battery consuming. Alternative open-source Android apps to daily used popular apps are a good solution. These alternative Android apps provide open source code for Android apps so developers can tweak with them as per their like.

54 Open Source Alternatives To Popular Android Apps

List of best open source Alternatives to popular Android apps are listed below:

OSMAnd & Maps – For accessing Maps, better alternative to GMaps official app, two of the best f-droid apps

andOTP – For 2-factor OTP authentication on Android, generates TOTP codes, data can be exported with encryption to easily switch to the different device or run it on multiple devices

oandbackup – Best android app for backup all apps with data (requires root), A great alternative to Titanium backup app

Mozilla Firefox – Probably a bit rough yet, but much more configurable and, above all, private. Use it in combination with Ublock Origin to block intrusive ads

Yalp – Alternative to store instead of Google Play Store. For those who want to go Google less, it allows downloading apps from Google Play anonymously or with a Google Account (for your paid apps), without the need for Google Play Services. No IAP and a bit of warning: it is said that Google could terminate your account because of it, as it seems that TOS of Google Play only allows the official client.

Silence & QKSMS- Alternative to the proprietary SMS app

Video Transcoder – Open source Android app converting and editing videos which do not share or use your data

Face Slim & Messenger Bypass – Best F-droid alternatives to Facebook Messenger, without any spyware and totally free, it avoids the necessity to download Facebook Messenger if you need to chat

Firefox Focus – Browser with ads and trackers blocked by default, wipes everything when you quit the app

Simple Gallery – Best and fastest gallery app imo, even better than QuickPic